If we love something similar to ourselves, we endeavor, as far as we can, to bring it about that it should love us in return.

Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.

Laws which can be broken without any wrong to one's neighbor are a laughing-stock; and such laws, instead of restraining the appetites and lusts of mankind, serve rather to heighten them. Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata [we always resist prohibitions, and yearn for what is denied us].

Yet nature cannot be contravened, but preserves a fixed and immutable order.

The greatest good is the knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole nature.

The holy word of God is on everyone's lips...but...we see almost everyone presenting their own versions of God's word, with the sole purpose of using religion as a pretext for making others think as they do.

I have resolved to demonstrate by a certain and undoubted course of argument, or to deduce from the very condition of human nature, not what is new and unheard of, but only such things as agree best with practice.